We present a general procedure to decompose Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) collider signatures presenting a \(\mathbb {Z}_2\) symmetry into Simplified Model Spectrum (SMS) topologies. Our method provides a way to cast BSM predictions for the LHC in a model independent framework, which can be directly confronted with the relevant experimental constraints. Our concrete implementation currently focusses on supersymmetry searches with missing energy, for which a large variety of SMS results from ATLAS and CMS are available. As show-case examples we apply our procedure to two scans of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. We discuss how the SMS limits constrain various particle masses and which regions of parameter space remain unchallenged by the current SMS interpretations of the LHC results.

We consider simplified dark matter models where a dark matter candidate couples to the standard model (SM) particles via an s-channel spin-2 mediator, and study constraints on the model parameter space from the current LHC data. Our focus lies on the complementarity among different searches, in particular monojet and multijet plus missing-energy searches and resonance searches. For universal couplings of the mediator to SM particles, missing-energy searches can give stronger constraints than WW, ZZ, dijet, dihiggs, \(t\bar{t}\), \(b\bar{b}\) resonance searches in the low-mass region and/or when the coupling of the mediator to dark matter is much larger than its couplings to SM particles. The strongest constraints, however, come from diphoton and dilepton resonance searches. Only if these modes are suppressed, missing-energy searches can be competitive in constraining dark matter models with a spin-2 mediator.

We assess how different ATLAS and CMS searches for supersymmetry in the \( t\overline{t}+{E}_T^{\mathrm{miss}} \) final state at Run 1 of the LHC constrain scenarios with a fermionic top partner and a dark matter candidate. We find that the efficiencies of these searches in all-hadronic, 1-lepton and 2-lepton channels are quite similar for scalar and fermionic top partners. Therefore, in general, efficiency maps for stop-neutralino simplified models can also be applied to fermionic top-partner models, provided the narrow width approximation holds in the latter. Owing to the much higher production cross-sections of heavy top quarks as compared to stops, masses up to m_T ≈ 850 GeV can be excluded from the Run 1 stop searches. Since the simplified-model results published by ATLAS and CMS do not extend to such high masses, we provide our own efficiency maps obtained with CheckMATE and MadAnalysis 5 for these searches. Finally, we also discuss how generic gluino/squark searches in multi-jet final states constrain heavy top partner production.